title: Predictors of paternal and maternal controlling feeding practices with 2- to 5-year-old children.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  This study aimed to identify predictors of controlling feeding practices in both mothers and fathers of young children.
  
  
  METHODS
  Cross-sectional, questionnaire design.
  
  
  METHODS
  Nursery schools within the United Kingdom recruited participants.
  
  
  METHODS
  Ninety-six mothers and fathers comprising 48 mother-father pairs of male and female children aged 2 to 5 years.
  
  
  METHODS
  Parents' child feeding practices, eating psychopathology, general mental health symptomology, and their children's eating behaviors and temperament.
  
  
  METHODS
  Preliminary correlations; stepwise regressions.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Maternal controlling feeding was predicted by children's eating behaviors (emotional over- and undereating), child temperament (sociability), and maternal general mental health symptoms. Paternal reports of children's eating behaviors (slow eating and emotional undereating) were the only significant predictors of fathers' controlling feeding practices.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Mothers' and fathers' feeding practices seem to be better linked to child characteristics than to the presence of eating psychopathology symptoms. Children's emotional eating predicted all 3 controlling feeding practices in mothers and warrants further study to elucidate the causal nature of this relationship.
authors.affiliation: Loughborough University Centre for Research into Eating Disorders, School of Sport, Exercise and Health Sciences, Loughborough University, Leicestershire, United Kingdom. E.Haycraft@lboro.ac.uk
authors.forename: Emma
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Haycraft
authors.forename: Jackie
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Blissett
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D002652:Child Behavior; D053198:Child Nutrition Sciences / Q000193:education; D002664:Child Nutritional Physiological Phenomena / Q000502:physiology*; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005219:Father-Child Relations; D005247:Feeding Behavior / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009034:Mother-Child Relations; D016487:Parenting / Q000523:psychology*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D006113:United Kingdom